Lights, bright and blinding, buzzing with electricity that mirrored the vigor of the fans. Their cheers were deafening even before the game started, rumbling like thunder. The stadium was a sea of North Boston University’s brick red and gold colors warring with the cobalt blue and black of Louisville. Signs and flags and rally towels waved in the air, the sidelines littered with more cameras and media crew than I’d seen all season.
The energy at the Blackberry Bowl game was unlike anything I’d ever experienced in my entire life.
It was a little discombobulating at first, especially how fast everything happened. One second I was waking up in my hotel and showering in the peaceful quiet. The next, I had a microphone and camera in my face. I blinked, and Coach was pumping us up in the locker room, warm-ups complete, Holden starting our team chant with all our hands joining force in the middle.
There was only one moment where everything slowed down, where time snapped back to its natural speed and I found my breath easier.
I was finishing my stretches, and at the sound of the whistle blowing, I jogged with the rest of our team back through the tunnel to the locker room. And in that dark hallway with nothing but the sound of cleats against pavement and the steady pants of my teammates, there was Zeke.
He jogged up beside me silently, slowing once he was at my side, and his bicep brushed my shoulder as we filed in. My next breath was strangled, and when I peeked up at him, he met me with a calm, comforting, steady gaze in return.
Even through the darkness, I saw the corner of his mouth lift in a smile, though his eyes were still swimming with pain.
“Give them hell, Mighty Mouse,” he said, just loud enough for me to hear, but so soft I knew no one else did.
My heart squeezed, and I opened my mouth to tell him I was sorry, to tell him I forgave him, to ask for his forgiveness, too — but it wasn’t the time, nor the place, and so I snapped it shut again.
And then, seemingly without warning or preparation, the game began.
All my senses were heightened with the spike of adrenaline that I realized must only come from playing in a game with such high stakes. Every crash of pads from our offensive line colliding with their defensive one reverberated through me like an earthquake, the smell of the turf and dirt dizzying, the vibration from the crowd so thick I could taste it.
When I jogged out for my first field goal, I didn’t even have the ability to get nervous. I was in a dream, lining up my foot with where the ball would be before I took two large steps back and two to the left.
The snap came, the ball was caught and placed, and I kicked with such a distant awareness that I didn’t even register the way my foot made contact.
The kick was good — I knew only by the sound of the crowd, and I let that roar bring my first sip of oxygen since jogging out onto the field as I made my way back to the sideline.
The game was a rush after that, their team scoring only to have ours score in return. Defense played their ass off and held them when we needed, giving us a ten-point lead going into the locker room at the half.
“The game isn’t over yet,” Coach reminded us as we recovered, re-taped, and rehydrated. “There’s still a whole lot of football left to play tonight. Don’t get lazy. Don’t get comfortable.”
Clay stepped up with a chant when Coach wrapped up, and then we were back on the field for round two.
Again, I found myself walking in a hazy dream, even when I secured another extra point kick. Every kick I’d had was solid, sound, calm and collected. It wasn’t even confidence — it was just… natural. Like breathing.
But that breath came harder when Holden was picked off in the third quarter, a Louisville cornerback running in a pick six that had them behind by only three points.
Zeke brushed past me as he jogged out on the field for another kick return, and the touch lingered on me in a way I couldn’t explain. I felt him there even after he was gone, when he was standing at the fifteen-yard line in a crouched position, fingers wiggling at his sides as he waited for the kick.
“Come on, Zeke, take it to the house!” a fan cheered from the front row, and his entire section lit up with their agreement.
I noticed the tilt of Zeke’s lips, how he cracked his neck.
And then the ball was sailing toward him.
It was slow motion, tilting and turning and flying over the field. Distantly, I heard the crunch of pads meeting, heard the stampede of feet as players on both teams sprinted down to where Zeke waited.
He caught the ball effortlessly, tucking it into his side.
And he ran.
Even through the thick lining of the brick red padded pants he wore, I could see the muscles of his thighs rippling with every explosive run and every quick juke he made to avoid getting tackled. He zigged and zagged through the special team’s defenders, the roar of the crowd growing more and more as he made it past the thirty, the forty, the fifty, well into Louisville’s territory.
“Go! Go! Go!”
Our teammates yelled in unison, jumping up and down like crazy on the sidelines as Coach wound his arm in circles and screamed the same.
Zeke narrowly escaped being wrapped up at the forty, and all eyes were on him with what seemed like an open path to a touchdown.
Until a gunner swung in out of nowhere and tackled him from behind.
The hit was brutal, Zeke unsuspecting as the player’s shoulder pads crashed into the small of his back. He bent in an unnatural way, nearly losing the ball in the process, but he somehow managed to tuck it under him before he hit the ground in a sickening crunch of body meeting turf.
There was a unified oohhh from the crowd, the hit hard enough to garner a gasp from me without any chance of taming it. The gunner hopped right up once the whistle was blown, jogging over to the opposing sideline.
But Zeke didn’t move at all.
He lay half on his side, half on his stomach, the ball still tucked under him.
Motionless.
“Shit,” I heard Coach Aarons mutter, and then I watched in horror as our trainers jogged out on the field, the referees clearing everyone else from the area.
He didn’t move.
Zeke wasn’t moving.
He didn’t roll over onto his back, didn’t groan in pain, didn’t so much as move a finger. His body lie limp and lifeless on the ground as the trainers surrounded him, carefully assessing.
And none of them made to move him, either.
I didn’t realize the shock I was in, how my breath had lodged in my throat, how my hands trembled where they hovered over my mouth. None of it registered until Leo gently touched my shoulder, making me jolt violently.
“He’s probably just unconscious,” he said, and that was supposed to soothe me.
That was the best-case scenario.
Because the only other reason he wouldn’t be moving…
I sucked in a cold breath, tears flooding my eyes, and Clay was there in the next instant, rubbing my back, too.
“It’s okay,” he promised. “He’s okay.”
But it was a promise he couldn’t make, one no one could make — not with Zeke still lying on the ground with a team of trainers around him.
One by one, I watched my teammates take their helmets off, watched them lower to one knee on the field or the sideline — wherever they were. Half of them watched where the trainers were huddled around Zeke. The other half watched the ground.
I couldn’t take my eyes off him as I lowered, too, knee sinking into the cold turf as my heart hammered in my ears.
Come on, Zeke. Get up. Get up.
The prayer repeated itself in my head, in my heart, in my soul as every player, coach, and fan alike held their breath and waited.
Tears built in my eyes again, and I didn’t bother trying to stop them as they silently slipped over the apples of my cheeks.
“I should have told him,” I whispered. “I… I should have…”
Someone squeezed my shoulder, and I didn’t realize I was speaking out loud until I felt that squeeze.
“He’s okay.”
Another empty promise from a voice I didn’t have the energy to identify.
All I could do was kneel, and stare, and wait, all the while feeling my chest split open with the possibility of what the injury could be.
My eyes focused on his left cleat, the only part of him I could clearly see through the trainers gathered around him. I stared and stared and willed it to move.
Please, I begged. Please.
It was too long. It had been too long that he’d been lying there.
But then, his foot tilted, toe bending down to the turf.
I let out a gasp of a breath, one that only intensified when Zeke rolled over onto his back, the trainers adjusting around him. I caught a glimpse of his face through a clearing, saw his eyes blinking slowly through the visor of his helmet.
And then I fell.
I couldn’t help it, couldn’t fight against gravity as it took me down onto the earth. My hands shook as I covered my mouth, as I breathed a million thank Gods.
“He was just unconscious,” someone said, and I blinked, clearing the haze in my mind as I peered up and found Holden beside me. “He’s okay.”
He’s okay, my heart echoed.
It seemed like hours or even days that Zeke stayed down, the trainers touching his limbs and moving him around, running tests before they finally helped him up.
And when he made it to his feet, I jumped up to mine, willing him to find me across the field.
Players on both sides began to stand, the crowd cheering as Zeke let the trainers help him walk off the field. He watched his feet for a long moment, but when his eyes lifted.
He found me.
I choked on a sob, holding his gaze and praying with everything left in me that he could see every word I couldn’t say in that moment. When his expression cracked, when his jaw quivered and he swallowed, offering me just one, slight nod, I knew he did.
He didn’t come back to the sideline. The trainers took him through the tunnel, and I watched him go every step of the way until his back disappeared from view.
Then, the whistle blew, and the game resumed.
But my heart wasn’t on the field anymore.
It was with the boy who’d just been walked off it.
Zeke
It felt like an eternity before I was allowed back on the field, the trainers keeping a watchful eye on me even after I insisted I was fine. They took me back to the locker room to do every test in their book, including a full concussion protocol. It was just a hard hit — one that knocked me clean out — but I was okay.
Bruised, sure to be sore, but okay.
Even with no clear signs of a concussion, they pulled me for the rest of the game, which was torture enough on its own. But added to the fact that I had missed most of the fourth quarter because I was stuck in the locker room with them, it was hell.
They finally let me back on the sideline when we had four minutes left in the game.
I checked the time on the clock as soon as my cleats hit turf, and then I saw the score, cursing when I realized they’d pulled ahead by a touchdown and extra point. That curse had barely left my lips when my field of vision was interrupted.
By Riley.
Her eyes were still red and swollen, her cheeks pink from the biting cold as she stood there in front of me, arms at her sides, shoulders slumped. She scanned me from head to toe, rolling her lips together against another wave of emotion I knew she was trying to ward off.
I wanted so badly to pull her into me, to crush her to my chest and assure her I was okay.
To ask if we were okay.
But all I could do was stay rooted in place, waiting.
“I…” she started, but then the words died, and she clamped her mouth shut. For a long moment she just stared at me, and then she shook her head, fighting back tears as she buried her face in her hands. “God, I thought…”
“I’m okay,” I promised.
That seemed to break her more, but she sucked in a breath, sniffed, held her head high, did her best to hold everything together as we both watched our offense take the field.
We couldn’t talk — not now.
We had a game to win.
Without a word, I nodded toward the field, and we both walked over to stand beside our teammates. Defense was catching their breath as Coach mouthed something into his headpiece, covering his lips with his clipboard. On the field, Holden clapped to break up the huddle, and offense sprang into action, lining up for the play.
The last three minutes went by in a flash, one that ended with us scoring a touchdown and Riley kicking the extra point with only forty-two seconds left. Louisville tried a Hail Mary to finish it all off, but it was unsuccessful, and for the second time this season, we found ourselves heading into overtime.
When the whistle blew and Holden ran out on the field for the coin toss, Riley’s pinky brushed mine.
I shuttered at the touch, looping mine around hers briefly before we both had to break away — her to run kicks, me to jog over to where Coach Aarons had just called me.
But our eyes lingered, and my heart pounded in my chest with a dangerous thread of hope.
By a miracle, we won the coin toss, which meant we got to defer and see what their team did first. With a start at the twenty-five-yard line, it was assumed they’d get a kick at the very least, a touchdown if we couldn’t hold them.
But our defense was impenetrable, not even allowing a single first down, and the crowd roared its approval as they ran off the field and the Louisville kicker went in. He lined up, and I noticed Riley wasn’t even watching. She kept running her own drills on the sideline, focused and ready for when it was her turn.
I looked back just in time to see the ball sail too far left.
It hit the yellow post with a loud thoing that reverberated through the whole stadium.
The crowd went nuts, our sideline mirroring that energy as Coach clapped his hands together and told us it wasn’t time to celebrate just yet. It was Holden’s turn to lead our offense, and he hyped them up in the huddle before clapping his hands and calling the first play.
I scanned the crowd, finding my parents first. Mom looked like she’d been crying, but she and Dad both waved at me, and Dad held up his fist, his eyes telling me without words that he was proud.
And right next to them, Riley’s parents, who were focused on the field.
Gavin sat on the end of the row next to all of them, the wheels of his chair just visible in the aisle. His eyes caught mine, and he gave me a subtle nod, the twinkle in his eyes silently urging me.
Go for it.
I swallowed, reaching into the pocket of my NBU jacket, fingers curling around what waited there.
The blow of the whistle called my attention back to the field, and Riley joined me on the sideline not long after, helmet in hand and ready to go in. When we failed to convert on third down with just eighteen yards to score, offense jogged off the field, and Coach signaled for her to go in.
She glanced at me, tugging on her helmet before I had the chance to say a word and jogging out onto the field.
I couldn’t breathe as I watched her line up for the kick, but like I had a feeling they would, Louisville called a timeout right when she ran up to kick the ball, their attempt to ice the kicker.
And thank God they did — because her kick was a miss.
She stood frozen for only a split second, and I knew her heart had to be pounding out of her chest as she jogged over to join the team near the sideline during the timeout.
Now was the time.
I didn’t have long, so I ran straight for her, grabbing her wrist as she whipped around in surprise.
“Zeke, you shouldn’t be—”
But her words faded when I pressed the little origami star into her hand.
She frowned, opening her palm to survey it before peeking up at me through her helmet.
“Open it,” I croaked, throat raw.
Her fingers trembled a bit as she did, unfolding my favorite picture of us. We weren’t dressed up or doing anything photo worthy. In fact, we both looked like bums, lounging in our sweats, hair a mess, lazy smiles on our faces as we laid together there on our old, sagging couch in the dorm room.
But I knew it meant as much to her as it did to me when she smiled, eyes glossy as she looked up at me.
“Turn it over,” I said.
She did, but before she could read, I recited the poem that I’d memorized now, repeating it word for word preparing for this very moment.
“Somebody who betters you,” I started. “Somebody who inspires and encourages you in love and in life, who pushes you toward dreams and goals you’d otherwise ignore, who selflessly sacrifices their time to help you become a more courageous, well rounded and happy human being. That’s sacred,” I said, swallowing before I finished. “You hold on to a love like that.”
Riley rolled her lips together, staring at the poem before her watery gaze found mine. “Beau Taplin,” she whispered.
I nodded, glancing at the clock and knowing I only had seconds now. “I’m so sorry. For everything. I’m sorry I hurt you, that I risked your scholarship and more in my haste, that I betrayed your trust. I can’t promise you I’ll never fuck up again, Riley. The odds are that I probably will.”
A ghost of a laugh left her lips.
“But I can promise you that I will show up for you, every day, and work to be a better person for you. To be the person you see in me that I can’t just yet.”
Coach yelled for Riley to get back on the field, but I held her for a moment longer.
“I love you,” I mouthed, careful not to say it in case anyone should overhear. But I said the next part out loud. “And I believe in you. You can do this.” I squeezed her hand before letting it go, but not before repeating, “You can do this.”
Her lips wavered as they spread into a smile, but she nodded, jogging back out just as the whistle blew. She lined up with where the ball would be thrown to the holder, taking her two signature steps back and to the left.
Then, her eyes found mine.
And even through the metal bars of her helmet, I saw the words come to life on her lips.
I love you, too.
The ball was snapped.
She kicked.
And I held my breath as I watched it sail.
